Hanover Central senior co-captains Sienna Antkiewicz and Bridget Noel complement each other well.
Noel, a 5-foot-8 forward, tends to be more low-key.
“She helps keep everyone in check,” Antkiewicz said. “She keeps everyone in control and makes sure we don’t lose our temper. We’re just always there for each other, just trying to control each other.
“She’s a good leader. Everyone can look up to her. She knows what she’s doing when she’s on the court. If you have a question, she knows every play because she basically runs every spot. It’s good to be able to go to someone and ask what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Antkiewicz, a 5-6 guard, tends to be more fiery.
“She gets close with everyone,” Noel said. “Even though she gets mad sometimes, she just plays. She’s always there for everyone.”
Indeed, Noel and Antkiewicz ultimately pull in the same direction as the Wildcats (8-5) seek their second straight sectional championship after winning their first since 2015.
“In basketball, we have dissimilar personalities,” Antkiewicz said. “But it’s really easy to understand each other. We’ve been playing with each other since fifth grade, all through Junior Wildcats when we were younger. We just knew who each other was. We’ve been able to progress from there.”
Noel and Antkiewicz are two of Hanover Central’s four players averaging between 8.2 and 9.3 points this season. Noel is posting 8.4 points, a team-high 5.3 rebounds and 2.3 steals while “getting more used to” seeing time as a guard, she said. She averaged 3.7 points, a team-high 6.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals last season.
“I’ve been taking the ball to the basket a lot more this year and shooting when I have the chance,” Noel said.
Noel is in her third season as a starter. She averaged 4.3 points and 5.1 rebounds as a sophomore.
“That was very scary, just being a little sophomore with the people who had played with each other and started for a little while,” she said. “But then I got the hang of it and have been starting ever since.”
This season has been Antkiewicz’s first opportunity to start, which has been something of a transition.
“At first, I didn’t really like it because I thought I was better coming off the bench,” she said. “I didn’t like the stress of having to start. It was a lot of pressure. But I’ve been doing fine with it, adjusting well to starting.”
Antkiewicz is averaging 9.1 points, 3.7 rebounds and a team-high 2.8 steals. She said her shooting hasn’t been as “consistent” as last season, when she averaged 7.4 points as the Wildcats’ first player off the bench, but her defense has been stronger.
“She’s just more confident,” Noel said of Antkiewicz.
Noel, who intends to study forensic investigation at IU Indianapolis, also was a regional qualifier in the pole vault in the spring and runs the 400 meters. Her sister Amanda, a 2023 Hanover Central graduate, is a thrower at the University of Indianapolis. Her sister Reagan is a 2020 Hanover Central graduate, and her brother AJ is a Hanover Central sophomore.
Antkiewicz, a standout second baseman who hit .390 with 27 RBIs last season while playing for her father, Sam, has committed to play softball at St. Xavier. She’ll join her sister Payton, a former standout pitcher for the Wildcats who graduated in the spring. Antkiewicz intends to study sports management at St. Xavier.
“Both of them, they’re tough kids,” Hanover Central coach Larry Govert said of Noel and Antkiewicz. “They’re really tough. They play well in the bigger games. Their mental toughness, it’s there.
“They have good leadership. They act right. They treat the younger girls the right way. It’s just good to see, in this day and age, that you have kids who do the right thing. … Overall, we go as they go. When they play well, we play well. That’s usually the way it is. They control the game.”
